Your sleep pattern

[Ruth]

I work night shifts, so my sleeping pattern is most bizarre. I also don't work consecutive nights (I used to when I started), so it even has greater variation than a normal shift worker.

it varies from summer to winter as well.

long sleeps (up to 12 hours as an extreme), broken sleeps (where I awake, process dream material, do some stuff on the internet, then drop back into dreamland), and lucid sleeps (not like lucid dreaming, but conscious while I'm sleeping, hard to describe).

I did experiment with caffeine for a while, but that stuff totally screws up your patterns, and wrecks your dreams. Effed me up big time (if I don't dream, I seriously get psychotic, much faster than most).

part of the reason I appreciate my job so much is because of these altered patterns of functioning, so much different from the norm.

I can totally relate to the "lucid sleep." I do this all the time. Not really asleep, not really awake. Aware of myself sleeping, can hear myself breathing etc, but not awake either. I do limit caffiene - you're right it can really mess up your sleep.